Django Unchained Actress “Accosted” By Police After Being Mistaken For Prostitute

A black actress who starred in Django Unchainedclaims she was “accosted” by police in Los Angeles after being mistaken for a prostitute. Daniele Watts, who has also appeared on shows like “Weeds” and “How I Met Your Mother,” was making out with her white partner, chef Brian James Lucas, in a car outside CBS Studios on Thursday when they were confronted by LAPD cops (photos).

“Today I was handcuffed and detained by 2 police officers from the Studio City Police Department after refusing to agree that I had done something wrong by showing affection, fully clothed, in a public place,” Watts wrote on Facebook. She went on, “When the officer arrived, I was standing on the sidewalk by a tree. I was talking to my father on my cell phone. I knew that I had done nothing wrong, that I wasn’t harming anyone, so I walked away. A few minutes later, I was still talking to my dad when 2 different police officers accosted me and forced me into handcuffs.”

Watts, who had just finished an audition at the studio, also shared a photo of herself taken as she was handcuffed and crying, and said that the tight cuffs left her wrists “bleeding in pain,” with Lucas providing a picture of the injury on his own Facebook page. He wrote, “From the questions that he asked me as D was already on her phone with her dad, I could tell that whoever called on us (including the officers), saw a tatted RAWKer white boy and a hot bootie shorted black girl and thought we were a HO (prostitute) & a TRICK (client).”

“Because of my past experience with the law, I gave him my ID knowing we did nothing wrong and when they asked D for hers, she refused to give it because they had no right to do so,” he went on. Lucas continued, “So they handcuffed her and threw her roughly into the back of the cop car until they could figure out who she was. In the process of handcuffing her, they cut her wrist, which was truly NOT COOL!!!” The couple say they plan on filing a formal complaint, and have retained a lawyer.

The LAPD has since released a statement on the matter, saying:

On Thursday September 11, 2014, around 3:01 p.m., patrol officers from North Hollywood Division along with a patrol sergeant responded to a radio call of indecent exposure in the 11900 block of Ventura Boulevard. The citizen who called the police to complain told the 9-1-1 operator that a male and a female were involved in indecent exposure inside a Silver Mercedes with the vehicle door open.

The responding sergeant and police officers located two individuals that matched the description of the suspects, and they were briefly detained. Upon further investigation it was determined that no crime had been committed. Ms. Watts and her companion were subsequently released.

An internal complaint investigation has been initiated regarding this matter.

See Watts and Lucas’ full posts, as well as photos from the scene, below. What do you think of the alleged incident?